FAU Symposium Addresses Origins of the American Presidency

Florida Atlantic University’s 2019 Alan B. and Charna Larkin Symposium on the American Presidency’s “Origins of the American Presidency,” a two-day symposium featuring scholars from around the world to present research, will take place on Wednesday, Feb. 20 and Thursday, Feb. 21 at FAU’s Student Union, 777 Glades Road, Boca Raton campus. Tickets for the symposium are $35 and tickets for the symposium and VIP reception are $60. Tickets can be purchased by calling 561-297-6124, at www.fauevents.com, or at the Box Office in FAU’s Student Union. FAU faculty, staff and student rates also are available at the box office.

On Wednesday, Feb. 20 at 3:30 p.m., Caroline Winterer of Stanford University will present “The American Presidency in the Age of Enlightenment” in the Live Oak Pavilion of FAU’s Student Union. Winterer is Anthony P. Meier Family Professor in the Humanities and director of the Stanford Humanities Center. She is an American historian, with special expertise in American thought and culture. She will sign her most recent book, “American Enlightenments: Pursuing Happiness in the Age of Reason,” following the lecture, with a reception to take place at 5:30 p.m. in the Wimberly Library.

On Thursday, Feb. 21, the symposium will last from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Live Oak Pavilion. Presentations include:

9-11 a.m. The European Origins of the American Presidency

“English Republican Thought and the Age of Revolution,” with Blair Worden, University of Oxford

“Natural Rights, Ordinary People, and the Construction of Political Philosophy,” Eric Slauter, University of Chicago

“The Eighteenth-Century Debate about Party: Montesquieu to Madison,” Max Skjönsberg, University of St. Andrews

1-2:45 p.m. The Politics of Constitution Making and the Federal Union

“Debates at the Constitutional Convention,” Jonathan Gienapp, Stanford University

“The Federalist Papers in Theory and Practice,” Claire Arcenas, University of Montana

“The Bill of Rights and Contours of Citizenship in the Republican Experiment,” Daniel Hulsebosch, New York University Law School

3-4:45 p.m. Political Theory and Practice among the Early Presidents

“Theory and Practice: The Politics of the First Presidents,” with Lindsay Chervinsky, Southern Methodist University

“Inside the Early American Presidency: The Making of a Slave Nation,” François Furstenberg, Johns Hopkins University

“Power and Liberty: Women and the World the Constitution Made,” Rosemarie Zagarri, George Mason University

Since its founding in 2007, the Alan B. and Charna Larkin Symposium has welcomed former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright; journalists/authors Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein; Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post; and historian David McCullough, as speakers. For more information about the Larkin Symposium, visit www.fau.edu/larkin.

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